You are here

ESCAP To Launch Regional MDG Report

Much Improved, Much Left to do

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) will launch the Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007 report in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The launch will take place simultaneously in Manila and Bangkok on Monday, 8 October.

The event in Bangkok will be held at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand at 11:00 am preceded by refreshments at 10:30 am.

The launch will be chaired by Mr. Raj Kumar, Principal Officer of UNESCAP. Introductory remarks will be made by Mr. Jean-Pierre Verbiest, Country Director for Thailand, ADB; and Ms. Elizabeth Fong, Regional Manager, Regional Centre, UNDP. The report will be presented by Mr. Pietro Gennari, Chief, Statistics Division, UNESCAP.

The report is expected to find that despite the economic prosperity in the region, some countries are still not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and that progress has not been shared evenly throughout the region. The report is also expected to state that progress in achieving some of the goals such as reducing poverty, child malnourishment and child mortality rate, water and sanitation remains a concern for this region.

The report provides a detailed picture of how each country in the region is fairing in its pursuit of the MDGs. While most of the developing countries can point to success in some of the development goals, none is on course to achieve all of them.

The latest in the series of regional progress reports includes, for the first time, systematic analysis of regional and country group trends for selected indicators that allow us to compare this region’s progress with that of other developing regions, namely, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and Caribbean, as well as among country groups within this region. Absolute numbers of affected population – as opposed to indicator values – have also been estimated and presented in this report in order to convey a sense of the scale of human deprivation as well as the scale of opportunities.
Another new feature of the report is that disparities within countries have been analysed based on household survey data going beyond the national-level progress assessment in the target areas this region is lagging behind.

Note to Editors: You or your representatives are invited to attend the launch of The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007, Monday, 8 October, starting at 10:30 hrs at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, Maneeya Centre, Phatumwan, Bangkok.